The advent of cloud-based computing architectures has opened new possibilities for the rapid and scalable deployment of virtual Web stores, media outlets, social networking sites, and many other on-line sites or services. In general, a cloud-based architecture deploys a set of hosted resources such as processors, operating systems, software and other components that can be combined together to form virtual machines. A user or customer can request the instantiation of a virtual machine or set of machines from those resources from a central server or cloud management system to perform intended tasks, services, or applications. For example, a user may wish to set up and instantiate a virtual server from the cloud to create a storefront to market products or services on a temporary basis, for instance, to sell tickets to or merchandise for an upcoming sports or musical performance. The user can subscribe to the set of resources needed to build and run the set of instantiated virtual machines on a comparatively short-term basis, such as hours or days, for their intended application.
In various cloud-based architectures, the cloud may be configured with a cloud marketplace system or engine which permits users of home, laptop, and/or other client machines to connect to the cloud and make the resources of that machine available for use by the cloud, in a controlled fashion. For instance, the user of a home computer may choose to allow that machine to remain powered up overnight, and to allow one or more cloud networks to extract processing power, memory allocations, and/or other resources for use by the cloud on a limited basis. In aspects, a cloud arrangement in which hardware, software, and/or other resources can be accepted from public users who choose to contribute their own user-controlled resources to the cloud can be referred to as a “cloud marketplace system.” In some cloud marketplace systems, the intake and distribution of user-controlled resources can be conducted using a bid system, in which cloud providers may bid or offer to use resources made available by users. A bid for use of resources can consist of a payment, and/or other remuneration, such as, for example, an offer for the user of cloud applications or services at a later time.
In existing cloud marketplace systems or other deployment systems of a contributory nature, no mechanism, format, or standard exists by which a user can specify the resources they wish to offer or deliver for use. Different contribution requests may therefore differ or be incompatible across different cloud providers, and in addition no capability exists to specify the access control features a user wishes to apply to the resources being delivered to the cloud. It may be desirable to provide systems and methods for the delivery of user-controlled resources in cloud environments via a resource specification language wrapper, in which resource contribution requests, access controls, and other data can be encoded and transmitted in a standardized or commonly compatible or decodable specification language wrapper, to a cloud marketplace system for decoding and deployment of user-controlled resources.